ELIZABETHTOWN – Senior Garrett Melvin fired in a ‘Hat Trick’ of 3 goals as East Bladen stayed alive for a share of the Three Rivers Conference championship and a playoff spot with a 6-0 Three Rivers Conference boys soccer victory over West Bladen Wednesday night.
The Eagles improved to 3-1 in league play and 7-1 overall and will host West Columbus at 3:30 Friday in their final conference game. A win would tie them with St. Pauls (4-1). Red Springs is 1-1 in league play and will travel to Whiteville Thursday to end their regular season.
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Photos by Kenneth Armstrong, https://www.kenarmphoto.com/
If Whiteville beats Red Springs and East Bladen wins Friday, East Bladen and St. Pauls will tie for the conference title and the Eagles receive the top playoff seed. A Red Springs win makes the situation more complicated. How would a 3-way tie in the loss column be resolved when one team has only played 3 games and the others have played five. “I have no clue!!” said Eagle Coach Jay Raynor. “So many moving pieces.”
The Knight defense held the high-scoring Eagles scoreless until the 23rd minute when junior Chase Starkloff’s shot was blocked, but junior Ishmael Arteaga pounded in the rebound for the 1st goal of the game.
“West did a good job of keeping the game in front of them and we didn’t respond well to it,” noted Raynor. “West layered themselves and once again negated our speed and forced us to play left to right. We did not handle that well to begin with. We forced a lot of passes and were jamming ourselves into their brick wall.”
Leading that ‘brick wall’ in front of freshman goalie Oswaldo Gonzalez were sophomore defenders Charlie Cruz, Cristian Sandoval and Gabriel Inestroza-Lara.
Senior Jay McKoy launched a long served ball to Melvin who knocked in the Eagles’ 2nd goal of the half. East Bladen outshot the Knights 13-0 in the 1st half and 33-0 for the game.
“We tried to play the ball back but they weren’t coming out so we finally had to start dumping balls into the 18 and try to make something happen in the first half,” said Raynor. “We also moved players all over the field trying to get something going and see how they would respond. Moving players around helped in the second half which contributed to losing marks on runs which led to us having more space to work with. Our movement off the ball was much better in the second half.”
The score remained 2-0 until 23 minutes into the 2nd half when Arteaga sent a pass to Melvin who booted in his 2nd goal of the game that grew the lead to 3-0.
Senior Jacob Priest boomed a long punt that took a few hard bounces over the Knight backline, and senior Will Hester turned it into a goal in the 68th minute.
Arteaga delivered his 2nd assist of the game to Melvin who finished off his ‘Hat Trick’ 26 seconds later. The goal stretched the East Bladen lead to 5-0.
Bolden took a pass near midfield and weaved his way through multiple defenders to close out the Eagle scoring in the 77th minute.
“It was good to see Malcolm and Garrett getting runs on goal and finding the back of the net,” stated Raynor. “Those two are tough and unstoppable once they get it going. Will Hester and Jackson Bostic had nice nights for us in midfield. Chase had a great game tonight. Moved him all over the place but he did all that was asked of him and then some.”
Raynor continued, “The last 15 minutes was classic us and the way we want to play. It was team oriented with everyone doing their job. It was good to see, especially with utilizing everyone available to play today.”
“Lafon Monroe and Blaine Pope gave us a lot coming off the bench,” added Raynor. “Both have bright futures and will be instrumental in leading the program next year for sure. Blaine had a few runs at goal and brought a ton of pressure.”
Raynor noted, “There were a lot of quality minutes for Blake Allen, Jair McElveen, Nathan Howell, and Stephen Matheson. Our young guys are working extremely hard and have been all year. They have improved a ton. Being able to get them minutes tonight showed glimpses of their potential but also glimpses of needing more experience.”
“It was a good response with a convincing win coming off our loss on Monday,” concluded Raynor. “The fashion of the way we lost, having goals disallowed, and not playing a complete game was rough on the guys. It was their 2nd loss in 4 years in conference play and the first time giving up goals to Red Springs in those 4 years as well. They could’ve came out and laid a goose egg tonight. There’s a lot of pressure and emotions in an East/West game. I thought our guys handled it the best way they could. We finally figured things out and hit our stride in the last 15-20 minutes.”
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